The present invention relates to an apparatus for checking damage to a surge protector and automatically changing a surge protector, which is capable of preventing damage to an electronic device connected to a surge protector by installing a plurality of surge protectors in parallel and checking damage to a surge protector connected to the apparatus by applying a check voltage to the surge protector.
With the recent development of the data communication technology, the number of electronic devices which are directly connected to external communication lines and transmit and receive data is suddenly increasing. Accordingly, there is a great need for an overvoltage protective device for preventing a failure in an electronic device attributable to the influence of a surge introduced into the electronic device.
A common overvoltage protective device includes a surge protector in order to prevent an overvoltage attributable to a surge from being applied to an electronic device. If a surge continues to be received, however, the surge protector may break down because a varistor within the surge protector is broken. Accordingly, there is a problem in that when the surge protector breaks down, it does not protect an electronic device from a subsequent surge.
In general, the surge protector includes a variety of types of elements, such as a Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV), a Gas Discharge Tube (GDT), a Transient Voltage Suppressor (VTS), and various resistors. The elements of the surge protector are gradually damaged due to inside/outside surges and do not operate at any point of time, thus being unable to normally protect an external electronic device connected to the surge protector. As a result, electronic equipment may be directly damaged by an overvoltage/overcurrent.
That is, when a surge voltage of a protection capacity or higher is inputted to a surge protector, the elements of the surge protector may be damaged and short-circuited. In particular, the TVS or the varistor are most damaged, and the TVS has the highest short-circuit ratio.
However, whether an overvoltage protective device has failed or not cannot be checked with the naked eye. Accordingly, an example in which corresponding equipment is damaged increases because a surge protector is not replaced at an opportune time although the lifespan of the surge protector has expired.
In order to solve such a problem, Korean Patent No. 10-1253229 discloses a technology for detecting the short circuit of one or more of a varistor and a TVS and displaying a result of the detection on the LED of an overvoltage protective device. However, there is still a problem in that equipment is damaged when a surge is inputted to the equipment because whether a failure has occurred in the overvoltage protective device cannot be checked if partial damage not a short circuit is generated.